The assembly of firearms from parts instead of purchasing a complete firearm has become popular with the purchasers of firearms. It has become a hobby that allows the firearm to be customized with the desired features by the purchaser. When a purchaser buys a completed firearm from the dealer, that purchaser usually ends up spending more money on customizing the firearm, while discarding parts that originally were part of the firearm. Popular changes to completed firearms are trigger replacement, barrel replacement, sight replacement and weight reduction modifications.
One of the parts of the firearm is always engraved with a serial number and registered with various government agencies. The registered part is generally considered as the firearm for registration purposes and is usually the receiver or frame of the firearm. The purchaser can purchase only the registered part and build a firearm by purchasing the other required parts to complete the firearm Under the law in most jurisdictions, a purchaser can machine a firearm without registration of that part that is normally registered. The unregistered machined part usually has restrictions from sale to others and must remain with the person who machined the unregistered part. If a transfer of the unregistered part takes place, the normal federal firearms regulations which include serialization, registration and background checks are required to be performed on the recipient of the firearm. An issue with machining the firearm from scratch is that most purchasers do not have a machine shop or the skills to machine such parts.
Machine shops and polymer manufacturers can manufacture firearms receivers up to a point of incompletion, that allows them to sell the unfinished frame to customers, who then proceed to finish the frame for their personal use. Under the federal law, if the part is only completed eighty percent or less of the effort to provide a completed part that requires registration, the part is considered not being a firearm. It should be noted that the “80%” description is not recognized by the ATF as an official technical term, but is understood as a classification or description of the type of component that is being produced within the firearms industry. The part being classified as a non-firearm allows the part to be sold by manufacturers without violating the law.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an unfinished firearm frame that can be completed by a purchaser.